Among recognition systems, one finds namely speech recognition systems with which the user can input information by way of speech; image recognition systems with which the user can input information by way of visible symbols; and handwriting recognition systems, with which the user can input information by way of handwritten symbols.
Information systems manage objects that are usually stored in databases. These databases are commonly customized by their users, as well as the information systems aimed at exploiting said data bases.
In databases, the objects are grouped into object types identified by a code. Each object type comprises a set of object instantiations, that is, specific objects, of the considered type. With each object type are associated a set of attributes that characterize each specific object instantiation of that object type. Attributes may be grouped into attribute categories. These categories can be defined either by the types of the underlying objects they references such as their nature (numerical, textual . . . ) or by the role of the attribute towards the owning object (naming attribute, length definition . . . ).
Each information system is adapted to the databases it has to handle and thus may address the object types, attribute categories, and object instantiations of an object type having certain specific attribute instantiations. Therefore, the codes used by a database to identify object types and attribute categories are recognized by the information system that has to handle said database.
Moreover, each information system contains action types grouping specific actions to be applied on the objects stored in a database. Each action type comprises specific instantiations of actions that can be applied to the specific object instantiations of one ore more object types.
Information systems are used in various application domains such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Document Management (DM) systems or Product Data Management (PDM) systems to name a few well known business application domains.
Traditionally, the users of a specific information system have to interact with this system by means of an interface specially developed for the system, and which will be different from one system to another even in the same application domain. An example of one such information system with a customized speech recognition interface is disclosed in D. J. Attwater and S J Whittaker, “Issues in large-vocabulary interactive speech systems”, BT Technology Journal, Vol. 14, Nr. 1, pages 177-186. In this document, an information manager is provided that receives the recognition results and converts them into action demands to the application database, and also uses information from the application database and a dialogue manager to provide recognition constraints for the speech recognition system. However, this information manager is bound to a given application database and speech recognition platform. Moreover, the recognition constraints it provides to the speech recognition platform are very basic and do not enable the recognition of complex, natural language user queries.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,402 (Monaco et al.) discloses a more versatile system that is suitable for a variety of speech recognition platforms, and provides them with more complex recognition constraints so as to enable natural language interaction. However, it does not address the issue of versatility in the sense of enabling a variety of information systems to be queried.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,023,697 (Bates et al.) also relates to the link between an information system and a speech recognition system for the input of user queries, but again, only for one specific information system and speech recognition system. It also does not address the issue of recognizing more complex user queries, providing instead guidelines to the user on how to formulate his or her queries.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,356,869 (Chapados et al.) relates to means for natural language speech recognition, but does not address the issue of versatility.
V. West, “Natural language database enquiry”, ICL Technical Journal, Vol. 5, Nr. 1, pages 46-63, does address the issue of natural language user queries, but not in the context of speech, or other, recognition systems. Moreover, it also relates to a customized interface, specifically developed for a given information system.
The object of the invention is thus to provide an interaction system that enables interactions of a user with any of a variety of information systems of at least one given application domain through any of a variety of recognition systems.